Ryan’s speech was a well-written, well-executed pack of lies. This is the same guy who voted FOR every single one of George W. Bush’s big spending policies — both unfunded wars, all of the unpaid for tax cuts, the Medicare Part D boondoggle for Big Pharma, and TARP. Yet HE’S calling Obama a big government spender. (By the way, all of these policy decisions continue to contribute billions to the national debt every year. They didn’t just go away when George W. Bush left office).

Ryan stated that Obama took $716B out of Medicare and gave it “too someone else”. Two responses: First, Obama SAVED $716B in Medicare by eliminating waste and fraud, and discontinuing the tax-payer funded subsidies to private insurance companies that were “administering” the Medicare Advantage program; Second, Obama used that savings to close the drug “donut hole” for seniors and having wellness visits covered. Mr. Ryan’s plan also cuts $716B out of Medicare, but he uses that money to help pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.

Ryan’s plan, which Mitt Romney has embraced, gives seniors the “option” of using “premium support” (vouchers) to go out and buy their own insurance from private insurance companies. This assumes that seniors could even find an insurance company that would be willing to give them coverage when they are older and more likely to become ill or injured. If they could find such a company, it would cost them an average of $6500 out-of-pocket to get coverage equal to what they currently have with Medicare. Of course, just by offering this option, Ryan strangles an already threatened Medicare program by taking people out of the mandated system. The obvious objective here is to end Medicare for EVERYBODY.

Ryan also took a shot at Obama for walking away from the Simpson Bowles Commission. This remark was the height of hypocrisy as Ryan himself turned his back on the commission’s recommendation to reduce the debt in a balanced fashion by cutting spending AND increasing revenue by raising taxes. Obama walked away from it because he knew the House would NEVER pass it. Subsequently, Obama asked congressional leaders to form the Super Committee, which the Republicans in Congress agreed to follow and which they are now threatening to back out on.

Ryan’s entire speech was riddled with falsehoods and half-truths and it made me sick every time that audience cheered what it was hearing. These people are supposed to be well-educated, moderately well-informed adults, yet they were jubilant about the load of garbage Ryan was feeding them.

“A downgraded America.” Ryan blamed the president for the nation’s credit downgrade in August 2011 after Republicans threatened to allow the government to default on its debt for the first time in history. But the ratings agency explicitly blamed “Republicans saying that they refuse to accept any tax increases as part of a larger deal.”

“More debt than any other president before him, and more than all the troubled governments of Europe combined.” Romney has made the almost identical claim, that Obama has amassed more debt “as almost all of the other presidents combined.” But their mathdoesn’t add up: when Obama took office, the national debt was $10.626 trillion. It has increased to slightly above $15 trillion.

Shuttered General Motors plant is “one more broken promise.” Ryan described a GM plant that closed down in his hometown, Janesville, Wisconsin, and blamed Obama for breaking his promise to keep the plant open when he visited during his campaign. But Obama never made that promise, and the plant shut down in December 2008, before Obama even took office.

“The greatest of all responsibilities is that of the strong to protect the weak.” Ryan closed the speech with an invocation of social responsibility, saying, “The truest measure of any society is how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.” However, numerous clergy members have condemned Ryan’s budget plan as “cruel,” and “an immoral disaster” because of its devastating cuts in social programs the poor and sick rely on. Meanwhile, Ryan would giveultra-rich individuals and corporations $3 trillion in tax breaks.

Finally, the recent ad being run by the Romney/Ryan campaign asserts that President Obama took the job requirement out of the welfare reform law that was passed during the Clinton administration. It has been debunked by every fact checking organization on the net and several major newspapers, yet the RNC has doubled down and continues to run the TV spot. Clearly, the decision has been made by the RNC that lying is perfectly acceptable as long as it works. Unfortunately, it does appear to be working in a couple of crucial swing states. Again, this demonstrates a willingness by some people to believe any lie that is spoken against this president, no matter how blatant or disproven by facts.

If you’re looking for unbiased, thoroughly researched information on health care reform that doesn’t have an ideological agenda, you should know what Michelle Malkin’s blog page proudly states:

Comment moderation is turned on. If you support Barack Obama and intend to post comments supportive of him, your post will not be approved! There are probably hundreds of blogs and sites where you can play with the rest of the Obamabots. We don’t drink Kool-aid here.

In other words, Ms. Malkin will not tolerate opposing views, nor will she allow any scrutiny of her ideas. The only comments she permits are those that parrot back her twisted ideology. Have you ever seen Michelle Malkin actually listen to anybody? What kind of people actually believe that this person has any of the facts right? This is a person who has devoted her blog-life to providing whatever disinformation she can about anything that the current administration is trying to do. The lie du jour concerns health care reform. I’ve read through Ms. Malkin’s venomous blogs about so-called “Obamacare”, looking for any factual or objective remarks and can find none. The screamers at the Town Hall meetings are listening to the likes of Malkin and accepting their information without question. Why? One possible answer is that they share the same fundamental belief that a black man is incapable of leading this country. No amount of valid information will convince them that Barack Hussein Obama is anything but a racist, socialist, baby-killing, non-citizen thug who wants to take over their beloved country. This is why we’ve seen such extreme misbehavior at the town hall meetings.

Ms. Malkin refers to health care reform as a “massive entitlement program” that threatens the lives of unborn children and the elderly. She shovels out one half-truth after another, as well as outright lies about reform, saying that it will take $500 billion dollars out of Medicare, and deny essential care to the elderly. She has fed into the blatant lies about “death panels” and that the government would take over all health care under Obama’s plan. Of course, she throws the word “socialist” around as if she has any idea what it means, while ignoring the obvious fact that the government administers two very successful heath care entities already: the Veterans Administration and Medicare. Ms. Malkin has many seniors thinking that they will lose their Medicare coverage, with which they are very happy, and she has posted misleading articles about its financial condition. She implies that the system is on the verge of collapse and that costs will push seniors out of system, conveniently ignoring the fact that excessive health care costs across the board are the primary reason for Medicare’s problems. The entire purpose of health care reform is to lower those costs and bring more people into the system, which would widen the pool of premium payers. Also, Ms. Malkin ignores the fact that a “public option” would create, for the first time, real competition for insurance companies and an incentive to reduce costs. That is capitalism at work, not socialism.

Health care reform has to happen. Too many people can’t afford coverage and simply go bankrupt after paying for life-saving treatments. Many who have no health insurance use hospital emergency rooms as their primary health care provider, which has caused the closing of countless ERs and many hospitals. Ms. Malkin doesn’t mention who pays for all that, i.e. the tax payers. Millions of families lose everything and go bankrupt every year because they can’t afford coverage. Who pays for that? We do. Ms. Malkin also ignores the fact that health care costs are skyrocketing much faster than wages, which keeps pushing coverage beyond the reach of many families.

Ms. Malkin has posted articles which state that the current health care reform under consideration would mean government subsidized abortions. This, of course, conveniently ignores the existence of the Hyde Amendment, which forbids any such thing. But, knowing that abortion is a hot button issue for many people, Michelle Malkin milks it all she can and incites the kind of belligerent protests we’ve all seen at the town hall meetings. (By the way, Ms. Malkin refers to these people as “peaceful town hall protesters”, not realizing that the whole concept of a town hall meeting involves a civil exchange of information, which makes disruptive protests completely inappropriate and counterproductive). The primary objective of Michelle Malkin and other extremist bloggers is to enrich themselves while angering people who are too lazy or ignorant to get the facts on their own. Malkin makes it easy for them to confirm their own distorted and uninformed opinions. Then, these ideological puppets light their torches and head off to the town hall meetings, where they shout down other citizens who are there to learn all they can about the reforms being considered.

The fact is, doing nothing about health care costs will doom our economy. Small businesses will no longer be able to afford providing this all important benefit and fewer people will have any coverage. Medical costs will continue to spiral out of control and personal bankruptcies will increase exponentially as the population ages. Medicare will collapse and the United States will slide even further down the list of infant mortality and life expectancy statistics. Right now, this country ranks 37th in quality of health care. Slovenia has a better system than we do. Yet people who listen to Michelle Malkin are diametrically opposed to reform and say they “just want to be left alone”. These are misinformed, short-sighted tools of an insurance industry which made billions in profits last year and will make even larger profits this year. For-profit health care management has become as dangerous to our health and our economy as any terrorist organization or greedy Wall Street speculator.

The next time you visit Michelle Malkin’s blogs, look for any dissenting opinions which aren’t consistent with her right-wing, ultra conservative, 19th century agenda. You won’t find any. The greatest danger to our democracy is a misinformed, ignorant electorate. Michelle Malkin has made herself part of the problem, while offering no rational solutions. If you think Michelle Malkin speaks the truth, I suggest that you pay a visit to PolitiFact.com, a non-partisan, Pulitzer prize-winning group that is separating fact from fiction in this debate. Opponents of health care reform are the proud winners of several “Pants-On-Fire” awards, which means that they are lying through their teeth. Also, you can visit another site, FactCheck.org, to find out who is lying about what. Finally, the AARP site, which has resisted endorsing any specific reform plan, is an excellent source of unbiased information.